Interior Dept to America: You might think you want to drill here, but really, you don’t

posted at 7:21 pm on October 15, 2012 by Erika Johnsen

In addendum to my weekend post about the Department of Interior focusing its bureaucratic efforts on fast-tracking their program for quickly approving permits for solar panels on public land — yippee ki-yay — I’ve just spotted this specific example of the ways in which the Obama administration is trying to take credit for the oil and gas boom while simultaneously trying to shut it down. It’s absolutely zero surprise, given that energy production on federal lands has fallen under the Obama administration and that they’ve openly announced their plan to keep several valuable offshore areas under lock-and-key, but it’s kind of funny how Interior is so loud n’ proud of their renewables-related decisions while their drilling-denials somehow seem to fly underneath the radar. “All of the above”? I call malarkey, sirs. Via the WSJ:

The latest example is the Interior Department’s little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. …

Alaska favors exploration in nearly the entire reserve. The feds had been reviewing four potential development plans, and the state of Alaska had strongly objected to the most restrictive of the four. Sure enough, that was the plan Interior chose.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan “will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives.” …

The problem is almost no one in the energy industry and few in Alaska agree with him. In an August 22 letter to Mr. Salazar, the entire Alaska delegation in Congress—Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Don Young—call it “the largest wholesale land withdrawal and blocking of access to an energy resource by the federal government in decades.” …

The greenies and their powerful lobbies just hate the idea of drilling anywhere in the pristine and ostensibly delicate environs of Alaska (ANWR’s political punching-bag status springs to mind), so it’s curtains for Alaskans’ and American businesses’ ambitious economic hopes on that front for now.

It may be true that a Romney administration would have some difficulty immediately rolling back and negating the avalanche of ideological, intrusive, and expansive regulations borne of President Obama’s environmentalist-laden administration, but this policy of barring access to valuable natural assets is type of thing that a Republican president could remedy pretty darn quickly — putting Americans back to work and creating the affordable energy and economic growth that our country sorely needs.

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The Interior Dept. needs to be on the chopping block. It was conceived when the interior was not compiled of seperate states. These states should now be allowed to decide what to do with their resources.

It may be true that a Romney administration would have some difficulty immediately rolling back and negating the avalanche of ideological, intrusive, and expansive regulations borne of President Obama’s environmentalist-laden administration, but this policy of barring access to valuable natural assets is type of thing that a Republican president could remedy pretty darn quickly — putting Americans back to work and creating the affordable energy and economic growth that our country sorely needs.

He has to first fight his own environmentalist tendencies.

Fought coal in Massachusetts. Fought offshore wind in Massachusetts. Declared the ocean off limits energy production in his last year in office after he already decided not to run for re-election. Cap and Trade, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Had the same Malthusian advising him as Obama had as a science czar.

But hey, he will totally make North America energy independent. LOL. Bunch of useful idiots. At least he is not Obama!

Hopefully a boot will be put on Salazar’s cowboy-hatted neck after this election is over and have him crying “drill baby drill” like the stuck pig that he is.

Romney is going to have to spend weeks undoing each and every regulation, executive order and any other Obama Admin directive after he signs a waiver for every state to opt out of Obamacare before directing congress to undo it totally with legislation.

The latest example is the Interior Department’s little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. …
=====================================================

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the bucks stops with her when it comes to who is blame for a deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

“I take responsibility” for what happened on September 11, Clinton said in an interview with CNN’s Elise Labott soon after arriving in Lima, Peru for a visit. The interview, one of a series given to U.S. television networks Monday night, were the first she has given about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Clinton insisted President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are not involved in security decisions, Clinton said.

“I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha,” she added, noting that it is close to the election.

The attack killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans at the consulate.

The Obama administration has been heavily criticized after Vice President Joe Biden said during last week’s vice presidential debate that the White House did not know of requests to enhance security at Benghazi, contradicting testimony by State Department employees that requests had been made and rejected. Following the debate, the White House said the vice president did not know of the requests because they were handled, as is the practice, by the State Department.

Clinton also sought to downplay the criticism that administration officials continued to say the attack was a spontaneous product of a protest over an anti-Muslim film, a theory that has since been discarded.

In the wake of an attack, there is always “confusion,” Clinton said. But the information has since changed, Clinton said in the interview.

The secretary of state also described the desperate scene in the State Department during the hours of the attack on the night of September 10. It was an “intense, long ordeal” as staff tried to find out what had happened.

Clinton said her mission now is to make sure such an attack will never happen again – but also that diplomacy, even in dangerous areas like Benghazi, is not stopped.

The biggest problem will be to get the people to care enough, so that this type of Ideological Idiocy, is stopped. The easiest way to do that is to get the people involved in the oil industry! The American people need to feel invested in the industry and the easiest way to do that is to get them directly involved at a low enough dollar figure(investment amount), to get millions of Americans interested in oil/energy production. Here’s the simplest & easiest way to do just that: http://paratisiusa.blogspot.com/2012/08/another-way-to-american-recovery-make.html?spref=tw

Make Palin Interior Secretary in the new Romney administration. Watch lefty heads explode. Watch energy production on public lands increase, even while oil companies are forced to pay more than ever before.

She was always going to be a way better person than Obama. Unlike Obama, she cares about how her name will be remembered after she leaves office.

astonerii on October 15, 2012 at 7:56 PM

She’s obviously scheming to redeem her legacy as best she can so it will be remembered that she stepped up and took full responsibility. She’s angling for the credibility it will give her for 2016 and I’m sure she’s counting on the fact that in four years, no one will remember how long it took her to assume responsibility, just that she came forward first.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan “will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives.” …

Huh… Ken… my friend… the pipeline from Alaska is running at dangerously low levels because there isn’t enough oil running through it. We have the infrastructure yet we are letting it decay for the lack of use. Local wildlife sleeps under the pipeline because it is warm and comfortable (when running at high capacity), and your issue is safety? You are creating the “safety issues” by not allowing the infrastructure to be used for what it was designed (and running safely and well until now) to do!!!

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says his plan “will help the industry bring energy safely to market from this remote location, while also protecting wildlife and subsistence rights of Alaska Natives.” …

…wish someone would drop ole Kenny and his cowboy hat… off in that “remote location” without a phone.

She’s obviously scheming to redeem her legacy as best she can so it will be remembered that she stepped up and took full responsibility. She’s angling for the credibility it will give her for 2016 and I’m sure she’s counting on the fact that in four years, no one will remember how long it took her to assume responsibility, just that she came forward first.

I can’t stand either Hillary or Bill. Can you tell? /

PatriotGal2257 on October 15, 2012 at 8:39 PM

We think alike.

But also, I suspect that this is The Hill’s “Janet Reno/Waco” moment. Reno “took responsibility” for the ATF photo-op-turned-disaster at Waco to save ATF and Bill’s rep. Bill made a few remarks about Masada, IIRC, grinned, went “aw, shucks”, and sent out for pizza, thereby avoiding any questions about such an op going down at budget-request time.

Sexy stings and “we need more money to stop these EEviiiill guns” are ATF’s standard cri de coeur at that time every year. Having an anti-gun POTUS I suspect made them so ambitious their already questionable judgement went completely out the window; an opinion also held by the U.S. Marshals Service.

This time, we have Hillary taking a page from Reno’s book, trying to save The One’s behind. On the principle of, “in ’16, you owe me big time, baby”.

I suspect it will fail for two reasons;

1. This is the leadup to a re-election contest, not the first six months of a new administration. People didn’t know what to expect from the Clintons then; we all know what a mendacious lot they, and the Obama crowd, are now.

2. Obama? Believing he should let someone call in a marker- on him?

As Nancy Pelosi would say, “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

Hillary isn’t quite that delusional.

Either The Hill has gone round the bend on that idea- or else The One knows where enough of her skeletons (or at least one really big one) are buried to make “falling on her sword” preferable to a well-placed “leak”.

My chosen profession is the mobilization of drilling rigs. Since the Won won in 08 I have had to work away from home (WY) due to this admins policies. I am currently moving rigs in ND and in 14 months I have yet to move a rig onto or off of a Federal lease. FORWARD

My chosen profession is the mobilization of drilling rigs. Since the Won won in 08 I have had to work away from home (WY) due to this admins policies. I am currently moving rigs in ND and in 14 months I have yet to move a rig onto or off of a Federal lease. FORWARD

jrsrigmvr on October 15, 2012 at 9:07 PM

But… but… you are saving the planet by not doing that in more places!!! Why are you so self centered to think only of yourself… and your family… and the economy at large? You should be asking Dear Leader for a loan to go back to school and learn how to move windmills around. That way you will save the planet (except for many endagered species of eagles, bats, and even human). /sarc

In all seriousness to your point, it is truly pathetic what has been done under these guys. Salazar, Chu, and Jackson are not working for the benefit of this country.

While I feel confident that Romney is going to be President, I wonder whether he will have the presence of mind and aggressive demeanor to purge the government of progressive plants. I think he will not.

The Bush administration failed to do this after taking over from the Clintons. The result was 8 years of what amounted nearly to a coup d’etat, deliberately undermining policies from within government offices. Richard Armitage’s “leak” of Valerie Plame’s identity was no accident, nor was the “Plame Game” incidental; they were executing a plot designed by rogue elements in the CIA and State aimed at discrediting and destroying the Bush administration’s initiative in Iraq. The NIE discrediting Bush’s Iran policy in 2007 was, again, no accident; the authors knew perfectly well that they were writing lies, but aimed deliberately at discrediting Bush’s policies, and succeeded. These are just two examples of a much wider pattern.

The progressive plants are more numerous now, and far more malicious. Good on Gov. Romney for attempting bipartisan leadership; but if he does not purge the ringers, we’re in for another 4 to 8 years of nonstop policy demolition by malicious partisans within the government — including places like the Interior Department.

The point is, there is no guarantee that Pres. Romney will immediately be able to end the war against fossil fuels, nor even that he will ever succeed at completely ending it.

I live in Northern Colorado and work in Wyoming. Wyoming is already drilling for natural gas on private land, and three car dealerships have been given permits, in the last month, to start developing a car engine that runs on natural gas as well as centers to distribute the gas to the cars. Colorado is also waiting to start up drilling on BLM that Obama and Salazar closed as soon as Romney is elected. The headlines this week in Cheyenne were that home values are rising.

The Bush administration failed to do this after taking over from the Clintons. The result was 8 years of what amounted nearly to a coup d’etat, deliberately undermining policies from within government offices.

I think everyone feels this way, no matter how pro Romney we are, we are aware today of forces outside and from places we can’t identify inside trying to twist outcomes.

During Bush, we wondered…we couldn’t identify it, and our own more conservative media became much stronger since that point. There was a crop of MSM media preen-ers and appeasers running our party…trying to look good in the MSM, which was always shaping a narrative that made Bush look bad…from about one month beyond 9-11, (when All Americans came together,) then the dems revolted, with Kennedy leading the charge against Bush because they were enraged by his popularity.

The media was so charmed by Bill Clinton and their questions were always skewed to ask liberal questions and like Bernie says they presumed liberalism was the center. Do you remember Power Sharing? It was “unfair” for republicans to be in charge of committees. It all led to the Pelosi takeover, and that is when republicans finally noticed that they were being screwed by the media narratives, and powerless to support a republican president and republican ideas. The media waged war against Bush to make him sign bills full of things that no power sharing republican would have thought possible. The media doesn’t entrap Obama into signing bills he doesn’t want with stories of soldiers dying, women dying, children starving. NO, the media tells us republicans won’t let Obama have the bills he desires.

So, it’s ok to criticize what happened under Bush, but it is more important to know that we have to be on top of the signs of things we don’t like. You have the power right now to affect your congressional and senatorial choices. But the primary days are over, and now you are going to have to make do with your candidate, and then SHOW up in his office with your tea party friends, and support your own causes loudly. The last time, with Bush, the media told everyone the compromise was wonderful, and we didn’t agree. And we were not organized.

This time we want to undo the tentacles strangling our constitutional principles, and prevent some of these things from happening in the future.

Make Palin Interior Secretary in the new Romney administration. Watch lefty heads explode. Watch energy production on public lands increase, even while oil companies are forced to pay more than ever before.

MTF on October 15, 2012 at 8:32 PM

This has occurred to me too. Palin would make an excellent Interior Secretary.

You know, before we started drilling for oil it used to bubble on the surface. I think if we were to stop drilling for oil it could start to bubble up to the surface again.
So i guess we could say that oil companies are keeping the environment clean from surface oil.

These areas “protected” on the theory that development would deprive them of their wilderness characteristics as defined by the 1976 Wilderness Act, which is so broad that it practically gives carte blanche to the agencies involved to place them off limits.

The real reason for this is the green affectation that they’re saving the earth, but the earth doesn’t need them or their help. No one or no other creatures have a use for the petroleum or gas sitting and accumulating underground. These can be recovered and used to meet our energy needs under restrictions sufficient to protect the environment, but it won’t satisfy those who think it’s their right and obligation to have stewardship over all natural resources. They’re among the biggest donors to the Democrats but Obama has shown us how practical their ideology really is when you let them near real power. It’s one thing to protect the environment, but that doesn’t mean we have to cripple our own economy to do it.